[ SECRET POST #5568 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5568 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



__________________________________________________



02.



__________________________________________________



03.



__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________



05.



__________________________________________________



06.



__________________________________________________



07.

















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 27 secrets from Secret Submission Post #797.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[feotakahari]

I once saw someone argue that it’s silly to expect gay fanfic to be in-character, because all these straight dudes are already out-of-character by having gay sex. They were laughed at, and I kinda feel like they earned it.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't feel like they were completely wrong. I think making the decision right off the top to ignore a character's canonical sexual orientation and canonical love interest(s) does tend to prime a person to be more flexible with canon in other ways as well. I know I tend to hew closer to canon with my canonical het ships, and I think one of the main reasons for that is because I'm starting from a place of canon adherence, whereas with my noncanonical slash ships, I'm starting from a place of rejecting canon and going my own way.

[(Anonymous)]

Except very few canons actually explicitly state "This character is exclusively heterosexual" and if there is no canon love interest, its even less written in stone.

[(Anonymous)]

It's pretty heavily implied in the majority of canons, though. Like, is it definitive? No. But is it a very strong bet that the authorial intent was for the character to be het? 95% of the time, yes.

[(Anonymous)]

Back in the early noughties, everyone knew this point and there was a massive sense of fuck you about writing them gay. Because authorial intent in this case mostly stemmed from the writers mostly being straight men with internalised homophobia. If there was ever somewhere to apply 'death of the writer', it's in exploring the relationship possibilities of a character outside of the writer's narrow world view.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT - I don't disagree. "Death of the author is invalid" is not at all the argument, here. The argument is that actively choosing to disregard authorial intent, while absolutely valid and frequently an improvement, is still making an active choice to diverge from an aspect of the narrative. Which leaves one nice and warmed up for making further divergences from the canonical narrative going forward; flexibility is heavily baked into the relationship one has with canon from the outset.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I'm trying to think of shows or movie series I've watched where a male character turned out to be bi without there being definite narrative indicators from fairly early on. Maybe the Magicians, I guess, though even there, it wasn't that many episodes in that Quentin had a threesome with Eliot, I don't think.

So yeah, never say never. But if a male character has a female love interest in canon, and there's been no canonical indicators that he may like men as well, then the odds are veeeery strong that the authorial intent is he's straight.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, and why should we care about ideas about that character's sexuality that only exist subconsciously somewhere in the back of the writer's brain?

[(Anonymous)]

Is it only a subconscious thought if the writer also, like, depicts their character expressing attraction to the opposite sex in canon? That's surely more than just a thought, yeah? If you want to throw all authorial intent out the window that's up to you, but at that point, why even bother with IC and OOC anymore? Why arbitrarily cherrypick *some* aspects of the character's blueprint as provided by the writer and ignore the rest?

[(Anonymous)]

Meh. I know several people who identify as bi but still lean heavily towards one gender or the other in their preference for a partner. Doesn't make them any less bi.

[(Anonymous)]

Exactly!

[(Anonymous)]

Screw authorial intent. Death of the Author, baby! Once those characters are out in the world it's the text and the audience's interpretations of it that matter.

[(Anonymous)]

This. If authorial intent mattered, all characters in almost everything from before 10 years ago or so (and that's being generous) would be straight, and writing them in gay ships would be OOC. Authorial intent was a somewhat common argument used by people who didn't like slash as to why it shouldn't exist. "You know the author sees them as straight even if it's not said in canon, so writing them as gay is OOC, and OOC is bad writing. But I'm not homophobic, because I don't have a problem with canon gay ships."

I'm also in a lot of semi-old anime and JRPG fandoms that use the "soulmates" and "it's okay if it's you" trope for canon same-gender relationships. The writers would deny that these characters were gay/non-straight despite canonically being deeply and forever in love with someone of the same gender. So sometimes writers' intent cannot be proven and therefore can be ignored, and sometimes even when it is proven, it's still wrong.